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mokulule · 4 months

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Almanac - Chapter 4

DP x DC Dead on Main First | Masterpost Note: I made a new masterpost to subscribe to over on my new blog where I organize my writing @mokus-invenstory. Links on the other chapters have been updated, I will still notify on the old post with updates.

Chapter 4 - October 21-22nd, Orinoids Meteor Shower

Training with Fright Knight was an experience.

Jason was no stranger to harsh training regimes, but it seemed like Fright Knight truly had no other duties to attend to. And maybe that was what ghosts did? Find the one thing they were good at and then do it for all eternity? It was exhausting, unrelenting.

Every day he went to the kitchen to find a plate of breakfast ready, thankfully it wasn’t the same thing every day. He wondered if it was courtesy of the Lunch Lady, but he never saw anyone else and the cupboards and pantry were empty.

The mystery of who and how human food came to be here itched at him but as long as the magical castle felt reluctant to even let him get to the kitchen in the first place (he’d yet to walk a path quite the same there) it was something he would have to leave unexplored.

He ate and then as he was done as if summoned Fright Knight would collect him and drill him until he dropped.

The knight treated Jason as if he’d never held a sword before starting basic at stance and simple attacks repeated ad nauseum, with the occasional cardio and strength building exercises. While Jason preferred guns, hand to hand combat and occasionally knives, it wasn’t the first time he’d fought with a longer bladed weapon. His general training meant he could pick up most weapons and use them successfully so he thought it was rather unfair - not that he was fool enough to raise that opinion, this wasn’t the first stern training master he’d served under.

And arguably he didn’t have much experience with medieval style broadswords. So he sucked it up and did as ordered.

There were no breaks throughout the day, no more food. You’d think it was a form of torture that he didn’t get to eat more than breakfast, but Jason, while he got tired, never got hungry throughout the day. Apparently he got the rest of his needs covered through energy diffusion or some shit - assuming he’d understood the king correctly.

His waking moments were repetitive, but he was not bored as such. Not that he was enjoying himself either, but he was busy, occupied. Training and learning new skills were never a waste - he had to tell himself that. But when he laid in the barren room, which he still considered his prison, in those short moments before exhausted sleep claimed him, horror creeped in; horror that this would be the rest of his life.

Another day another drill.

The weight of the practice sword in his hand felt as familiar as breathing after 9 days of non stop practice.

“You are becoming complacent,” Fright Knights voice boomed as always from everywhere at once despite him clearly looming right in from of him.

Jason tilted his head regarding the knight for a moment. He wondered how much sass he could get away with.

“Well you could give me a challenge instead of this,” he returned evenly.

Somehow Jason had the distinct feeling the knight was smiling unseen in the darkness under the helmet.

“Very well,” his voice rumbled like a storm in the distance, setting all of Jason senses alert at the coming threat. His grip tightened on the practice sword.

The knight turned and flew over to set aside the neon green sword he carried at his side in favor of a practice sword in the weapons rack by the wall. For the first time since Jason had seen the knight kneel before his king, his feet touched ground.

He stalked towards Jason, a weight and realness to him now as the armored shoes clanged against the cobblestone. The hair at the back of Jason’s neck stood on end as the air charged with his approach. Every instinct in his body told him to be afraid. Someone with less combat experience might have frozen, Jason picked his guard up and turned so he made a smaller target.

The cobblestone knocked his breath out and his sword clattered across the stones. His ears rang and he could already feel his left eye swelling from where it had met an armored fist. Above him a couple of shooting stars shot across the clear sky in rapid succession before the Knight stepped close. He loomed above Jason and for one horrifying moment Jason thought he would ram the practice sword through him, blunt tip and all.

Instead the knight held out a hand.

Jason wet his dry lips and took the hand. He was pulled unceremoniously to his feet.

“Did you notice what I did?”

Not only did Jason notice that twist Fright Knight had done that had sent his sword flying, he very much felt the way he socked him in the face.

“Yes.” Jason had not expected he’d be dueling something like a fucking Kryptonian, nobody that size had the right to be so fast. The trick to fighting Kryptonians and people of that speed class was more in anticipating their moves rather than reacting to them, and more importantly coming prepared with something to incapacitate them with. Jason had no clue what might be Fright Knight’s weakness, probably wouldn’t be so easy as to laugh at him.

The knight nodded at his response.

“Good, now to counter.”

He then walked Jason through no less than five possible counters, to what was apparently a rather risky move he’d done - had he been alive at least. The counters were well and good, but as long as Jason had no way to counter the speed, the knight could repeat the move at his leisure.

Not that Jason pointed that out. No, Jason practiced dutifully and found himself seeing the stars multiple times that day. He got very well acquainted with the cobblestone. On the seventh meeting with the ground, he thought he saw a glimpse of light from a window high above the courtyard. He could have sworn it was the king watching, but as he got back to his feet and looked back up the light was gone. Maybe it had just been a reflection, a trick of the light from one of the many shooting stars.

Still, reminded of why he was here, his mood soured. Yes, Jason had put himself in this situation, but he’d expected to die for his sacrifice - and maybe that would have been too easy an out, but he’d certainly not expected to be discarded, like the unwanted possession he apparently was.

Resentment curled in his gut. Poor little king never wanting to have been summoned having to take Jason as payment. It was clearly such an ordeal.

Jason snarled getting back to his feet and for the first time he went on the attack. Fright Knight seemed amused, which only egged him on. Jason reached for the All-Blades but of course they didn’t manifest, because in this stupid place not even someone named fucking Fright Knight counted as true evil.

He let Jason wear himself out, disarmed him again, and punched him hilt first in the stomach. Jason crumpled over the practice sword and slid down to his knees, gasping for breath.

The knight considered him for a moment, waiting to see if he would get up again. When he didn’t, he made a minute shake of his head.

“You have spirit, but your mortal trappings do you no favors.”

Jason couldn’t help laughing at that. What was he supposed to do? Apologize for being alive?

“Blame your king.”

Oo o oO

That night Jason dreamt of Gotham, or more specifically of Crime Alley. Dick was patrolling in Jason’s absence, but he didn’t know the Alley like Jason did. He didn’t know of the small shadowed nook in that building that made for a perfect hidey hole. He didn’t see the gun pointed at him, didn’t move until the shot rent the air.

Jason sat up in bed gasping and shaking.

It was a dream, it was a stupid dream. He fumbled automatically for his phone, before he remembered, there was no way to make sure. He was stuck in the realm of the dead. It was a dream, he firmly reminded himself.

Still he shook and couldn’t bring himself to go back to sleep. Dick’s shocked face haunted him whenever he closed his eyes.

Gingerly he stepped out of bed. Clearly the order to keep Jason alive hadn’t kept the knight from beating him to hell and back. A particularly spectacular bruise mottled the side of his torso in purples and blues. From the twinging pain with every breath there was probably a few bent or broken ribs underneath that.

He walked to the bathroom, where he’d hung his clothes to dry after washing them in the sink. He reached out to touch them to find them cold and damp, a testament to how little sleep he’d managed. He shivered at just the thought of pulling them on, but he didn’t exactly have anything else to wear.

He couldn’t go back to sleep. He needed to move. That gun had been aimed for Dick’s head. It was just a dream, he reminded himself sternly. He needed to pull himself together.

Taking a deep breath he reached for his underwear first, pulling it on with a grimace. Disgusting was not a strong enough word, he thought grimly. He was cold and miserable by the time he’d finished dressing and trapped his damp socks in his boots and tied them.

Dressed, he left the room for the hallways, expecting the castle to give him a good walk around as usual - expect he’d barely walked down two hallways until a door revealed the kitchen. There was a cup sitting on the table in front of his usual place. Curious he walked over to pick up the steaming mug, he put it up to his nose and sniffed it. His eyebrows rose in surprise - hot cocoa.

He glanced around and like always saw no sign of the presence of anyone but himself. He took a sip and amended his earlier assessment with a hum of pleasure, this rich taste could only be hot chocolate. It sat warm in his belly and he found some of the restless energy leaving him. He sat down and allowed himself to relax. He held the cup with both hands and let the warmth seep into his fingers with a sigh.

Maybe the castle didn’t entirely hate him after all.

He sipped slowly, savoring the treat. The hot chocolate was good, it wasn’t quite Alfred’s but-

A wave of homesickness overtook him and he slumped forward in grief. Maybe Jason would manage to escape some day, but Alfred was not exactly young anymore. People died suddenly sometimes, even when they seemed healthy.

Jason wasn’t there anymore. He couldn’t check on his family. Not Alfred, not Dick (it was just a nightmare!) or anyone. A mocking laughter haunted him as if from a distance, a memory wanting to drown him. He clenched his fits tight, he wasn’t back there. He was here, property of the ghost king, safe.

Unlike everyone else.

The Joker was still in Gotham. Still alive despite everything, a threat to everyone and Jason was useless.

He was a fucking idiot. He’d sacrificed himself willingly, but he hadn’t expected to have to live with the choice.

Did that make him a coward too? On top of everything?

He stood. He couldn’t sit here. He had to move. Before he knew it he was walking through hallways, uncaring where they took him. Left, right, nothing mattered. He just had to move. He didn’t know how long it he walked until he found himself, breathing heavily, in front of a stairwell. There was something familiar about it. His eyes were drawn to the path down. He’d never chosen to go down before. There was something down there. He took a step forward.

“Jason.”

He froze and spun around at the echoey voice. It felt like all the breath left his body, sucked into the gravity of the king.

Toxic green eyes flicked from Jason to the stairwell. Dark brows drew together in a frown, and the shadows suddenly seemed darker, deeper, like places you could fall into and disappear never to be seen again.

He floated closer. The pressure increased. Jason locked his knees to keep standing. There was a siren blaring in his mind, a scream lasting an eternity. Cold fingers touched his swollen eye soothingly and Jason gasped, a quiet little intake of breath into his burning lungs.

He wanted to move away. He wanted to lean into it. He wanted- He did nothing.

The gloved tips of fingers became the flat of a palm cradling the side of his face oh so gentle. Jason felt wetness in his eyes and blinked. He couldn’t handle gentle right now. His skin tingled and the swelling fell. The king looked at him, green eyes sad.

“Are you okay?”

Was he okay!? Jason ripped away, fury finally breaking the spell.

“The Hell I am!” In his mind Dick’s shocked face, a second from being shot flashed, “my family could be hurt right now, dying-“ a crowbar dragged across a concrete floor, a terrible laughter skittered across his senses, and every hair stood on end- “tortured.”

Jason took a step forward into the king’s space, snarled, “and I can do nothing!” into his shocked face. Playing at innocence, as if Jason’s words were a surprise. As if he didn’t know exactly what he’d done. He had changed the wording, acting like he’d done Jason a great favor. He chose to keep him here, useless, powerless.

He stepped back. Looked at the king with anger gone cold. “Killing me would have been a mercy.”

Jason braced himself for the worst. He’d said his piece. He expected an explosion, a onesided fight, for his brain to melt out his ears, something other than the hollow eyed gaze only vaguely looking in his direction.

The lights flickered and finally the king seemed somewhat present in his body. He looked at Jason with the most neutral face in existence.

“I shall relieve you of my presence, goodnight.”

He flew casually over to the staircase and went up. It was only then Jason snapped out of it.

No! How dare he!

He ran after him, but of course he was gone. The cursed castle made sure of it. Jason wanted a fight and he would not even give him that! He punched the wall with a frustrated scream that cut off into a sob.

“Shit.” He rubbed angrily at his eyes. He was fucking pathetic. Couldn’t even pick a fight right.

Oo o oO

Fright Knight found him in the practice yard, doing drills, sweaty and shaking from exhaustion.

“You are pathetic human, sit down before you fall down.”

Jason glared. “No.”

The knight promptly pushed him down on his ass. “Do not test me. I was tasked to keep you alive. Drink.”

A bottle of water was shoved into his hands.

Mulishly Jason did as he was told. It was only when he’d taken the first sip he realized just how thirsty he was and he had to force himself not to just chug the entire bottle in one go.

Fright Knight watched him with that detached disgust he had for mortal weaknesses, like the need for sleep or in this case sustenance. He was a fucking annoying, stuck up bastard, but-

“Why are you not evil?” Jason asked in frustration, too emotionally worn to consider whether that was a smart question to ask. If he had been evil, Jason could give him a proper fight. Let the knight try to phase through the All-blades.

When no response of any kind came, he looked up. It seemed he had rendered the knight speechless.

Slowly hesitantly the knight finally spoke, “You speak as if you’d prefer that I was evil, yet I was led to believe you are aligned with so called heroes.”

Jason scoffed and looked away. “Not a hero.”

Fright Knight floated down to sit crosslegged in front of Jason, his glowing green sword drawn and resting across his knees.

“I am the spirit of fear itself, I am neither good nor evil, I just am.”

Jason barked a short chuckle, of fucking course. Then, he explained the concept of the All-Blades to the knight; flaming magical blades fueled by the soul and blood of the wielder, only able to be summoned in the presence of true evil. The knight in turn looked very intrigued.

“I would have liked to match my Soul-Shredder to your All-Blades. A glorious bout that would have been…” the knight said wistfully.

“Soul-Shredder is the name of your sword?”

“Indeed,” Fright Knight chuckled maliciously in a way that ran cold down Jason’s back, an effect that was done on purpose judging by the greedy glow in his gaze. Jason felt fairly certain he feed on fear.

The knight raised the green blade between them and turned it to let Jason see every facet with obvious passion. “One cut from Soul-Shredder will land you in a dimension of your worst nightmare.”

Jason’s breath caught in his throat. No. He refused to think about it. He forced a half choked laugh, “and you claim not to be evil.”

The knight looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe if we had met in the previous king’s rule, we could have had a proper match.”

Jason frowned in confusion. “Why would who the King is matter to your nature?”

“Because human,” Fright Knight began, green eyes boring into Jason, “the King is the most important soul in the Realms. His nature affects the very air from which we get our energy.”

“Pariah’s reign was a dark time,” there was an almost nostalgic tone to his voice as he continued, “he sought to conquer, control and enslave and I was his loyal servant, as is my duty as a knight. But Pariah was so bad that having no king at all was a better option than him, and he was sealed away by the Ancients, even if it left the Realms stagnant and disconnected.”

He paused for a moment to let that knowledge sink in.

“Our Phantom is a king who never wanted to rule, and has actively avoided it. It has been amusing to see him grow into the role.”

“And as long a he doesn’t grow into a power hungry despot he will always be better than the last?” Jason asked bitterly.

The knight barked out delighted laughter at that.

“Make no mistake, mortal, Phantom is a good king now, but he is young, still changeable by nature. These years are crucial. But should the worst happen and my king become a despot, as you put it?”

Fright Knight shrugged carelessly. “I will merely do as I have always done and that is to serve my king. I am the spirit of fear after all. It is only my concern now because my king wishes to avoid that fate.”

Leather creaked as the knight tightened the hold on his blade. He looked straight at Jason. Despite no mouth being visible, Jason had the distinct feeling the knight was grinning.

“We may yet have our bout someday.”

And that was chapter 4... nobody is really in a good place here? Except Fright Knight, he's having fun.

Comments are much appreciated <3

You can subscribe to the masterpost for updates.

#almanac #dp x dc #dead on main #warning for bad coping mechanisms #Jason is really not in a good headspace #neither is Danny #but he's not our pov character currently

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rocketbirdie · 1 month

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Arrrghh. People are finishing up Rebirth and looking up the different localizations, and the inevitable wave of hate for the English version is starting to gain traction again just like with Remake. I guess I just get super defensive about it because I have worked on large translation projects before, and it's not as straightforward as players seem to think.

It's not like the good ol' days of "This Guy Are Sick." They don't write the JPN script first, and then just send it out for translation anymore. Nowadays the different language scripts are all written simultaneously, with the teams working back and forth together, to check over each ofher's work and make sure that no one sentence is under- or overshooting a goal. Like it or not— everything is checked over and approved.

There's a lot more being translated than just words. There's so much to take into account— tone of voice, the cultural context, the lip sync and corresponding length of each line (which isn't allowed to run over by more than 0.2 seconds which is CRAZY). It's a messy process and it's a lot of goddamn work.

And then there's the audience, too. Different languages' audiences are often going to have wildly different interpretations of a character. A really good example from FFVII would be Yuffie. In the JPN version of the OG, Yuffie is written to be a confident girl who's dead serious about her ninja training. The ENG translation didn't do that justice... she instead comes off as a silly annoying kid pretending to be a ninja. Remake's DLC was testing the waters to see if they could write Yuffie in a way that's still faithful to both of the strikingly different regional perceptions of her character. And they nailed it.

The same thing happened with Cloud, and continues to influence the way he's written in the Re-trilogy. It's much more subtle than with Yuffie, but it's still noticeable, and I think it's why a lot of people get up in arms about his dialogue.

Cloud has always been written as having a stark disconnect between his tone of voice and his choice of words. It's just that the two major languages get it swapped! JPN Cloud has a harsh, mean tone, but his choice of words is polite and easygoing. On the other hand, ENG Cloud says a LOT of nasty shit out loud, but his true feelings are betrayed by his soft voice and gentle body language.

The difference goes unnoticed by the average player who isn't so invested to give a damn. But if you're actively searching for "bad translations" to get mad at, then you'll find them where one version's Cloud comes off a bit too strong. It's only natural that English Cloud is the one that pisses people off more often— after all, he's literally saying stupid shit to to piss other characters off constantly. His character is so convincing that players want to reach into their screens and wring his neck, and I think that's glorious.

But that's why it upsets me to see people turn that frustration at the localization teams. They didn't "ruin" a character's dialogue— they were just barely able to make something work, all things considered. Character, line length, culture, story context, facial animations, voice acting, for MULTIPLE languages, like... holy shit. It's a miracle that most of it is really really good, and that the bad is only a little bit bad.

Idk where this rant is going. Just... c'mon people. Have some respect for such an insanely complicated art form.

#look dude. some of the shit cloud says in ENG is awful yes. THAT'S THE POINT THAT'S THE POINT THAT'S THE POINT #it's supposed to be jarring!! it's supposed to make you want to fucking bite his fingers off!!!!!!#it's his shitty asshole coping mechanism and it's The Point Of Everything #the ENG and JPN versions may be different but The Point gets across nonetheless. and that is GOOD.#ugghhh ok just get this outta my system. seeya lol have yourselves a wonderful me gongaga monday tuesday #ffvii

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